Dr by royal appointment

Every weekday morning, Dr Tim Evans holds his surgery in Wandsworth, then leaves at lunchtime for Buckingham Palace, where he treats members of the royal family privately and the rest of the royal household on the NHS.

He is far too discreet to let slip whether he has advised acupuncture for the Queen's pain from her damaged knee, or an aromatherapy massage to alleviate on-going family tensions, but they are among his holistic remedies.

For the past year, Dr Evans has had the official title of Apothecary to Her Majesty and the Royal Household, but he is becoming the standard bearer for advocates of complementary medicine across the country. They include Prince Charles, who is urging the NHS to make complementary medicine more widely available, especially to allergy sufferers.

Evans's surgery, at Westover House in Wandsworth, is a revolutionary departure from GP practice in the way that it successfully combines conventional medicine with holistic therapies.

He shares it with three other GPs, but he is supported by a host of holistic practitioners, including a Chinese herbal doctor, an aromatherapist, sports masseur, acupuncturists, osteopath, homeopath, reflexologist, dermatologist and psychotherapist. Pilates, Swiss ball exercise and yoga take place in a studio at the back. A weight-management guru runs a slimming and fitness class. The practice's scope is unique in the UK.

Patients referred for complementary treatments will first have seen a conventional doctor. The GP can either then treat an ailment with conventional drugs alone or suggest a therapy to complement the conventional treatment. Or they may feel that a homeopathic remedy is better than a conventional drug.

Wandsworth residents are now flocking to see 48-year-old Evans, who has two young children and is married to Annabel, an interior designer. He has an impressive CV. Among his achievements, he lists two years as district medical officer in the Zambezi Valley and the running of a 100-bed hospital in Zimbabwe. His interest in complementary medicine started there, in the early Eighties.

"Working alongside traditional African practitioners exposed me to many forms of medicine I had previously known little about," he says. "I was not necessarily a patient's first call there; often they had seen the witchdoctor before travelling for days to me when the 'cure' hadn't worked.

"Some practices, such as surrounding a child with what turned out to be meningitis with burning coals, were, of course, highly suspicious. But I learned enough from my patients to realise that focusing only on primary care was not necessarily in their best interests."

Returning to the UK in 1983, he spent the next few years broadening his experience in general practice, obstetrics and anaesthetics. He then set up a single-doctor practice in Fulham, specialising in the care of women and children, and became (he still is) medical director of the Total Health Clinic at the Harbour Club in Chelsea and of Blossom House, a school for children with learning disabilities. He set up Westover House almost four years ago.

Although Westover House is a private practice, Dr Evans believes it signals the future of medicine in the UK and should be for every patient, whether they are NHS or not. In the past three years, there has been a 30 per cent rise in people being treated with complementary medicine.

But Dr Evans will have to overcome the resistance of the medical establishment, which rightly points out that many so-called holistic practicioners are unregulated. "Become an aromatherapist in a week" is a not uncommon promise made in advertising. The British Medical Association is demanding tighter control over alternative techniques. The way Dr Evans has combined conventional and complementary medicine could be the solution for regulating therapies and ensuring proper training and qualifications for holistic practitioners.

Many of his 2,000 patients fervently hope so. They believe complementary medicine has transformed their health.

One such is Lavinia Mills. Three years ago, she became disillusioned with her local NHS practice and went for a consultation with Evans. Impressed by the earnest GP, she decided to register. Now, inspired by her doctor's beliefs, Lavinia, her partner Pete and their 18-month-old daughter Isabella consider themselves to be a "holistic family".

"It really started when I became pregnant," says Lavinia. "Through my visits to Dr Evans, I discovered there could be so much more to a healthy, happy pregnancy than just having checks in a hospital. I felt so relaxed all the way through that I became curious to see what alternative therapies could offer us once my baby arrived."

Lavina, a 38-year-old sales and marketing executive, and Pete, also in marketing, describe a haven where their every health need for body and soul can be catered for, whether it's a de-stressing massage, a Pilates class, or a quick response to a bump on the head for Isabella. Seven months pregnant with her second child, Lavinia receives antenatal care that is both conventional and complementary. Pete does stints at the Fat Club.

She says her experiences of NHS GPs were "disappointing and rather depressing". Doctors were always running late and their handling of patients was perfunctory as a result. "I was never 100 per cent confident in any advice I was given. The doctors seemed overloaded, and I couldn't blame them for not being able to give me the time I felt I should have had.

"I was amazed when Dr Evans told me that pregnancy should be a 'celebration' and not just a routine round of hospital antenatal visits," she recalls. "I now think that we get too focused on worrying about what kind of birth we are going to have rather than how to achieve the well-being that should come during the whole nine months leading up to it.

"But the real eye-opener for me was cranial osteopathy, which I had never imagined could be used for babies. Dr Evans explained that this could prevent headaches which children may develop, often as a result of the pressure of birth on the skull. Isabella seemed to really enjoy it. It also made her incredibly calm afterwards. We went to baby massage classes, which have taught me how to help her when she is fractious at home."

Dr Evans sees his practice as "an endorsement of trust and respect among practitioners who, in the past, have often refused to work together. There is enough clinical evidence to show that many of these treatments work; now more and more conventional doctors are seeing it as the way to go.

"I may be the first to have a true holistic practice, but this has been the realisation of my vision of how medicine should be."